


Moving Clouds on the River's Surface

by rejected (surskitty)



Series: Past the Seven-coloured Rainbow [2]
Category: Pokemon, Reborn!
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Plotty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/pseuds/rejected
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'd've wanted to label this a particular Pokémon universe, but unfortunately this is my magical magical AU and that doesn't really work.  Setting is mostly Pokémon Special with some Magical Pokémon Journey.</p><p>I'm pretty much only using first names because this is a Pokémon crossover: everyone is on a first-name basis with everyone else.  Unless you're a professor or something.</p><p>Apologies for things not totally making sense.  It's also unbeta'd.  TO BE CONTINUED . . . or possibly the prequels'll get finished (or more finished) and posted eventually.  The world may never know.</p><p>If you recognize the title, you are A Nerd and I will give you an invisible cookie.  Also.  NERD.</p></blockquote>





	Moving Clouds on the River's Surface

_"Look for a man named Hibari Kyouya. You'll know him when you see him."_

In retrospect, Hayato should have known better. Altomare is big and not the kind of big where nobody cares; it's the kind of big where everyone either has a bad case of the tourist or knows everyone else and ... he's not local. Maybe he could've counted as local a few years earlier, but he's not local _now_ and that's what matters. Looking for one guy in a city like that with only a name and a cryptic warning is _fun_ like a hand grenade to the face. (While he has no direct experience with hand grenades and faces, he's pretty familiar with the concept in an 'inflicting it on other people' sort of way. Not that he'd ever bring this up to the 10th if he didn't absolutely have to.) He sighs and it's only the knowledge that the 10th (or Reborn, but Reborn wanted what Tsuna wanted1, so that was all right, then) wanted him to show up and find this guy that keeps him from leaving then and there.

 

* * *

 

The city is as crowded as he remembers it, as it was when he was a small child lost in the big bad world. He thinks he's older and wiser now, but he still glances at shadows and tries to notice body temperatures. It's stupid, but he used to think he'd win some respect in this damned town if he -- he's not sure. But it doesn't matter. It never did.

He hates this city and region and language. This city's entrenched in the past in a way Goldenrod and Slateport never were; he thinks of Ecruteak briefly, but Ecruteak never left the past. Every time he hears someone speak -- and they don't shut up -- he feels faintly disoriented.

Still, it's close to home. (Home is not a place; home is Tsuna. The little shack outside Viridian -- and isn't that nostalgic? -- is Home for as long as Tsuna is there and no longer. It's his wish, after all, and Tsuna'll grant it as if he were to die.)

 

* * *

 

On the third night, he wakes with a cat in his bed. More to the point, he wakes on the windowsill in his boxers with the goddamn alakazam snoozing under his blankets and coiled on his pillow.

"What the fuck, pervert doc," he says. The pokémon ignores him; Hayato throws a flowerpot (sans flower) at it. The alakazam raises a spoon and stops it in midair, then snores.

"Hey, Shamal." It doesn't respond. Hayato clicks the stolen fastball on his belt and is strangely satisfied when nothing happens except the cat glares at him.

"Haven't you heard of letting sleeping kitties lie?" If the pokémon speaks inside his head, he's too tired to tell.

"That's dogs, not pervert bastards who teleport off for months at a time with only eggs for news. Fuck you; give me my bed bqck." It was also tactless, particularly since he'd given a few to the baseball idiot and a few of the 10th's friends. They rarely hatched as the same species.

Shamal stretches, then leans against the headboard. "Maybe you'd loosen up if you took my advice, huh, Hayato?"

"What the fuck! I'm not going to sleep with everything that moves. That is a pervert bastard thing. I am not a pervert. I do not sleep with absolutely fucking everything remotely female. QED."

"Congratulations."

They sit like that for a while, Shamal on the bed and Hayato on a counter, but he can't keep it like that forever. "... where have you been?" he asks grumpily.

"You're the idiot who ran off, Hayato. I heard from Angela that you'd left to help pokémon in need, but I think she misheard."

  


* * *

  


He goes to the museum, more out of no better idea than any actual reason. The fossil pokémon are fucking _awesome_. Aerodactyl is _so amazingly awesome_ and -- he's pretty sure the damn baseball idiot's fought one already despite the fact that they've been dead for millions of years. He looks up at the fossil as he automatically starts to calculate what he'd want to go for if he decided to take down the building. He sort of wants to punch himself in the face once he notices, but he --

\-- senses something weird. The one occupied pokéball on his belt wobbles; he faintly hears Uri growling. He's no psychic, but maybe Tsuna's rubbing off on him, or maybe it's his self-preservation1.

"You're loitering," a man says to him, expression flat. Hayato simply glares in response: "I'm looking at the fossil."

He seems unimpressed. "Loiter elsewhere," he snaps as he looks meaningfully at the crowd. Through some miracle of herd instinct, the tourists scatter.

That's never a good sign, Hayato thinks as he reaches for the luxray's pokéball, but he's sure by this point that if he's sent off without Tsuna or Tsuna's friends, there isn't going to _be_ a good sign. "Let me guess. You're Hibari Kyouya?"

The tonfa -- wait, this isn't Johto; why does a guy in _Altomare_ have tonfa? -- flying towards his face probably means yes, he decides. "-- Uri!" The cat intercepts the blow, but that's more because he'd aimed where the luxray would come out than from any desire to protect him. To show its deep and profound love for its trainer, the cat bites him, kindly refraining from electrifying its fangs. ... The gesture is lost on him.

"Herbivore. Why do you hide behind a weakling?" The _crazy bastard_ slams a tonfa into the cat's muzzle, then lunges for Hayato. Uri snarls and tries to bite the attacker; it's not very effective.

 

* * *

 

The only reason Hayato isn't left unconscious in a canal, he learns later, is because one of his usually-empty pokéballs did not remain so. The young jirachi had teleported in to intervene; he's not certain if Tsuna won or merely distracted the monster long enough to get himself and Hayato out of there. What mattered was that Tsuna looked unharmed when he awoke in his hotel room with the pokémon snoozing near his head.

He sighs and slides off the bed. The 10th is gone again, though he'd said he'd come if Hayato called, but he can't bring himself to ask if it's not absolutely necessary. He's the one who fucked up, after all. "Shit," he says, staring at the floor: there are faint traces of metallic dust.

"The hell happened to you," Shamal not-quite-asks. Hayato jumps.

"Why the hell're you back again? Useless pervert, I got in a fight."

"I'm not going to help you if you can't keep your blood inside your body, kid. You're a trainer. That means you get the guys that can handle it to fight, not you."

"Fuck off. You know anything about a guy named Hibari Kyoya?"

"Sounds Japanese."

"No shit. I ran into him yesterday, I think. Asshole tried to break my nose instead of answer my damn question. You got anything?"

Shamal looks at him, sniffs, then sighs. "Whoever kicked your dumb ass spends too much time near psychics, that's for sure. Speaking of which, have you been letting other pokémon near my bed?"

* * *

1 If this wasn't true at the beginning, it'd turn out to be true later. Or Reborn would _say_ it's true and Tsuna'd agree despondently and that counted.

2 It isn't.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd've wanted to label this a particular Pokémon universe, but unfortunately this is my magical magical AU and that doesn't really work. Setting is mostly Pokémon Special with some Magical Pokémon Journey.
> 
> I'm pretty much only using first names because this is a Pokémon crossover: everyone is on a first-name basis with everyone else. Unless you're a professor or something.
> 
> Apologies for things not totally making sense. It's also unbeta'd. TO BE CONTINUED . . . or possibly the prequels'll get finished (or more finished) and posted eventually. The world may never know.
> 
> If you recognize the title, you are A Nerd and I will give you an invisible cookie. Also. NERD.


End file.
